Witness Apartheid:

A Teaching Guide by William Bigelo w Introduction and Summary of Lessons ...... 3

Day One: Apartheid Simulation ...... ?C

Day 'bo: Film-Witness to Apartheid ...... 7

Day Three: Role Play4 New Breed of Children" ...... 9

Day Four: Role Play4 New Breed of Children" (completion) ...... 11

Day Five: Letter Writing...... 13

Reference Materials ...... 14 Additional Reading Suggestions for Student. Reading Suggestions for lkachers Additional Film Suggestions

Student Handout #1 Privileged Minority...... 15

Student Handout #2 The Bantustans ...... 16 Student Handout #3 Human Rights Fact Sheet...... 17 Student Handout #4 Learning Was Defiance ...... 19

Student Handout #5 South African Student ...... 21

Student Handout #6 Challenging "Gutter Education"...... 23

a1987 Copyright by William Bigelow

Published by The Southern Africa Media Center California Newsreel, 630 Natoma Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, (415) 621-6196

This "Raching Guide" made possible by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Design, typesetting, and production by Allogmph, San Francisco

Film, Witness to Apartheid (classroom version): 35 minutes, 1986 Produced and directed by Sharon Sopher Co-produced by Kevin Harris

Classroom version of Witness to Apartheid made possible by the Aaron Diamond Foundation. Introduction

The story Witness to Apartheid tells is stark: children in South Africa - the same age as students we teach - are today being beaten, detained, even tortured. As one recent human rights report summarizes, the South African government is waging a 'kar against children.''

The images of Witness to Apartheid are not seen on the evening news: a father shares his feelings about the cold-blooded murder of his son by a South African policeman; a young woman describes the hideous torture she experienced while in police custody; a young man mumbles that he doesn't want to go on living - his beatings by security forces have left him permanently disabled. The film documents that in today's South Africa murder, detention, torture occur not as aberrations, but systematically - sanctioned at the highest levels. To be young and black in South Africa is to be a target, a human rights offense waiting to happen.

This teaching guide provides a week's lessons which help students experience this frightening - but, paradoxically, hopeful - world of South Africa. Students will come away from the week as "witnesses to apartheid": they will simulate the inequities of life in South Africa, and learn about the repression used to prevent change; see and hear South Africans describe some of the horrors and hopes of life in that country; confront the dilemmas facing black South African student activists through role play; and finally, communicate directly to their peers in South Africa.

By the end of the week, expect students to develop a framework for understanding today's explosive events in South Africa. As they begin to see why children their own age are risking their lives to end apartheid, they will deepen their own understanding of human rights and democracy. And as students grasp the enormity of injustice in South Africa they will consider their own responsibilities as global citizens. INTRODUCTION

Summary of the Lessons: Witness to Apartheid implicitly raises some important questions: What are people in South Africa so deeply committed to that they would be willing to risk imprisonment, even death? What is so oppressive about social conditions in South Africa that people choose such great risks? Are there changes in certain government policies which could satisfy their demands for justice, or are deeper, structural changes needed? Who benefits from this system and why are they willing to unleash such brutality on those who would seek changes?

Day one: Apartheid Simulation acquaints students with apartheid as a system of racial and economic domination and human rights denial, and begins to equip them to answer the above questions. Students learn how apartheid consigns blacks to the worst land, death by preventable diseases at much higher rates than whites, meager wages, and denies them a statutory voice in the governance of their own country. Further, students see that it is not simply a matter of blacks being poor and whites being rich - but rather that blacks are poor because whites are rich. This helps lay the groundwork for understanding the impassioned commitment to resistance - and the ruthless repression - portrayed in Witness to Apartheid.

Day two students watch and discuss Witness to Apartheid. Discussion questions help students deepen their understanding of human rights and reflect on why the government is prepared to go to such lengths to intimidate and crush those who would challenge its rule. Students also consider the motives and goals for some of those who are determined to end apartheid.

Days three and four students participate in a role play in which they learn about their counterparts in South Africa, the people Archbishop Desmond lbtu calls a "new breed of children." These are the young people seen in Witness to Apartheid who daily risk their lives in encounters with South Africa's security forces. Through role play, students will share in the problems, difficult choices and hopes experienced by South Africa's youth.

Finally, Day five, students are given the opportunity to write letters to their peers in South Africa. The internationally respected Detainees' Parents Support Committee, based in Johannesburg, has provided a list of names of young people in South Africa who have been detained. Students now have a chance to express support, direct questions and offer thoughts to the South Africans they have been studying throughout the week. DAY ONE: APARTHEID SIMULATION*

f&oalrlebjectives: Materials Neoded: 1. Students will gain an understanding 1. Masking tape of apartheid not simply as segregation, 2. "m & m" candies but as a system by which a minority 3. Student Handout #1: Privileged Minority denies the majority access to land, 4. Student Handout #2: South Africa: The Bantustans incsme, power and rights. 2. Students will consider why people might rebel in South Africa 3. Students will begin to understand why a system of deep injustice inevitably kcomes dependent upon force and repression.

I Procedure: 1. Prior to the class, mark off a large rectangle on the floor the rest of the class. To determine the total number of "m & m" with masking tape. Within the rectangle several small areas candies available for these wage packets, multiply the number should be marked off with tape. Combined, these small areas of majority students by 1.5. (This simulates the roughly 8 to 1 should total 13% of the larger rectangle. Also mark off an area whitelAfrican income differential in South Africa.) Give no in a comer of the room which can be used as a prison for "m & m"s to the majority. uncooperative students. Tell students that some people in this society make more 2. Explain to students that they are going to do a simulation than others, but if they haven't yet made enough to survive they about a real country in the world today. can go to work for the privileged minority. (If need be, suggest certain jobs that the minority could employ the other students 3. Choose approximately 16% of the students, four out of to do - eg., emptying the garbage, sweeping the floor, cleaning a class of twenty-five, who will occupy the 87% of the rectangle. the chalk boards, moving books, straightening desks, and even Give Student Handout #1: Privileged Minority to these students policing their other majority colleagues.) Make certain the and send them off to a comer of the room to read the role sheet. minority demands proper respect from the others. You might 4. Group (squeeze) the rest of the students into the small areas even want to include yourself as one of the privileged minority. comprising the remaining 13% of the rectangle. Explain to these 8. Encourage the privileged minority to write any needed laws students that under no circumstance may they go outside their on the chalkboard: no talking back, no talking between groups, designated areas unless given permission from you or one of the etc. If students break laws, those hired as police can be called "privileged minorityl' (Later, you may want to join the privileged upon to take them to jail. New laws can be enacted as needed. minority in scolding those "stupid kaffirs" who can't follow directions and step over the lines, or wen send them to prison.) 9. What to expect: Results of the simulation vary from group Also explain that, should the need arise, you will enforce the to group. Generally the privileged minority will act haughtily, orders given by the privileged minority. sometimes making outrageous demands on the majority. Usually students in the majority will compete with one another for 5. With the majority confined to the various areas, quietly "m & my'sand other privileges, like the right to be outside review Handout #1 (so that others can't hear) with the privileged of their small area. At times, students will shove each other out minority, making certain students understand their roles. Show of these areas or tattle on one of the others in order to curry students the area you have marked off as a prison. Explain that favor with the minority. Occasionally, it will occur to the majority you will ensure that any student they send to prison will remain that they should resist the minority by refusing to cooperate. there. The minority will usually respond with increased repression: & Introduce the privileged minority to the rest of the class, making laws forbidding noncooperation, talking or organizing explaining that only these students get to wander the classroom for change, or by carting alleged troublemakers off to jail. freely. Tell students that in this simulation "m & m" candies will Once, a student who was a member of the privileged minority represent income. Explain further that to succeed at this exercise "banished" a troublemaker to the hallway outside the classroom. each student must be in possession of at least two "m & m" A dean who happened to be patrolling the halls promptly gave candies by the end of the simulation. this student detention for not having a pass. All this is grist for the discussion mill. Whatever happens can in some way be 7. Conspicuously give two packets of "m & my'sto each of the related to what is happening or has happened in South Africa. privileged minority. One packet should contain 12 "m & my's which will be used for personal consumption. The other packets 10. When you feel students have adequately experienced the given to the privileged minority are to be used as the wages for simulation, call a halt, have them return to their seats and begin

Adapted from William Bigelmu, Strangers in Their Own Country: A Cumculum Guide on South Africa, Africa World Press, Penton, New Jersey. DAY ONE discussion. Often it is useful to have students write a short 11. Explain to students that the simulation dealt with the reaction to the simulation: how they felt, why they responded country of South Africa. Point out the country on a map of the the way they did, why they did or did not try to change the world. With the students, continue the discussion by introducing arrangement. This can help ready the class to thoughtfully the diagram below (do this as an outline if you prefer). discuss the simulation experience. Some possible questions: As much as possible, complete the diagram with the students Who succeeded in acquiring at least two "m & my's?(Point rather than as a lecture Begin by asking students direct questions out that the privileged minority had succeeded before the about their experiences. Next, ask them to infer how people might exercise had even begun.) What did you have to do to get them? jus~this anangement, how it mlght have developed. Involve How did this simulation make you feel? Was it fair? students in a discussion of the obstacles faced by those who wish to change the structure Who here would have liked to change the set-up? Who liked As the diagram is being completed you might break down the way it was? Why? certain words. For example, apartheid (pronounced apart-hate): an To the majority: Did yau think the privileged minority preferred Afrikaans word meaning apartness. Continue to draw out students' things the way they were? Did you speak out, complain or reactions and include these on the board. demand any changes? What were you protesting? What was 12. Distribute the Student Handout #2: Map so students can see most unjust? How did the minority respond to your efforts? the actual location and size of the bantustans, the designated Why did they respond that way? If you didn't speak up, why 'homelands" for black South Africans. Ask students to reflect on not? What made it difficult for you to change your conditions? why these areas are chopped up into so many pieces. How miat To the minority: How did you deal with people who were this make it difficultfor a united movement for equality and justice uncooperative or tried to change the system? If you knew the to develop? members of the majority were dissatisfied, why didn't you try to make the situation more fair? Homework: Were there any conflicts among people in the majority groups? Writing Assignment - Distribute copies of Student What caused these? (overcrowding?competition for jobs?) Did Handout Human Rights in South Africa. Ask students to try #3: the privileged minority do anything to to increase the carefully read the information included in the handout Have conflict between people in the majority? students write on the What reasons might the majority have for prohibiting protest following topic: and change? Can you make any general statement about the Imagine that tomorrow we are going to take a field trip to South connection between repression and a system which is blatantly Africa. Afler arriving, we will first meet with a group of black unequal? South African students. What would you like to find out about In real life, how could a minority justify having so much more these students' lives? Make a thorough list of questions in wealth and land than the majority? preparation for our meeting.

South African Africans (Blacks) Afrikaners and English (Whites)' 'Note: Polnt out to students that not all whites support the system of apartheld In South Society Afnca. Many belong to anti-apartheld organlzabons. Some have been jaded or forced Into exde by the government. Students will meet some of these people in Witness to Apartheid. Assigned to 13% of land designated as "Bantustans" or "Homelands" Ownloccupy 87% of land

Income less than 118 of whites' Income eight times that of blacks

Socialloccupational subordinates Socialloccupational superiors

- - No vote or voice in lawmaking, Make laws which everyone must follow but must obey laws E I Must have permission to live in the 87% of Control through laws who may or may not live in "white" South South Africa designated "white" D Africa. Virtually all protest, nonviolent or otherwise, is outlawed. Even to meet together is illegal. People may be detained without trial indefinitely. Thousands are in jail without having been convicted, or even accused of any crime According to human rights groups, 70% of these people have been physically tortured. Hundreds have been shot in the streets by police and the army. FILM "WITNESS TO APARTHEID"

QorlslObJecthres: Materials Needed: 1. Students will become aware of the 1. Film: Witness to Apartheid widespread human rights abuses and 2. Student Handout #4: Learning Was Defiance, by Dumisani Kumalo the depth of brutality practiced by the authorities in South Africa. 2. Students will reflect on the determination of those standing up to the South African regime. 3. Students will speculate on the origins of this commitment to justice. 4. Students will consider the link between repression and the preservation of apartheid.

' Procedure: 1. Tell students that although the class can't travel to South anything in your home that might subject you to arrest if you Africa, South Africa can "travel" to the class in the form of a film: lived in South Africa? What about here in this classroom? Witness to Apartheid. Ask students to use the lists they Did you notice that a number of the policemen who are completed for homework to share what questions they would like attacking children in the film are black? Based on your answered by South African students. For reference, you may wish experience in the simulation, why do you think officials in the to keep some of these questions on the board as the week's study white government would want to hire black police officers? Why of South Africa continues. would some blacks take such jobs? How do you think residents 2. Tell students that early in the film they are about to watch, in the black townships feel about these police officers? Archbishop Desmond 'l%tu remarks that in South Africa, "We've Based on some of the interviews in the film - particularly got a new breed of children." Encourage students to think about those with Mrs. Botha and the whites who were asked if they this idea as they watch the film: What does he mean? In what had ever been to a black township - how do whites justify ways are they similar and different? living in such a grossly unequal and unfair society? 8 Show the film. What makes whites reluctant to change? 4. Discussion questions for the film include: From what you saw in the film, are you hopeful that South What are the most powerful images from the film that stick in Africa could change nonviolently? What evidence is there to your mind? What shocked or surprised you? support the claims of COSAS students that real change will In the film, Archbishop 'htu quotes a number of young people come to South Africa only through violence? Is there any who say, "If they want to, those police can escort us with their evidence to the contrary? Is it reasonable to hope that the guns at the ready. But we are going to this graveyard and we "Mrs. Bothas" of South Africa could agree to a fully equal society in South Africa? are going to march." How would you react if a friend of yours (Note: You may want to point out that Botha a a wry common last name among were killed and you were not allowed to attend the funeral? Afrikaners in South Africa. It a unlikely that the Mrs. Botha in the film is related to Prime What gives the young people in South Africa the kind of Minister I? W. Botha.) determination described by Archbishop mtu? In the film, Curtis Nkondo of the United Democratic Front How important are the freedoms for which the students are argues that "anyone who wants peace must first fight for risking their lives to achieve? Would you also risk your life to justice," that there is no real peace without justice. Do you achieve these? Where else have people risked their lives for agree? What does he mean by justice? similar goals? Nkondo asserts that in South Africa, 'We are not fighting A member of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) whites, we are fighting the system." What's the difference? says in the film, 'We feel as if we're not free. We feel like we're Why does Nkondo feel it is so important to emphasize this in prison, even though we're at home." What does this mean? distinction? What evidence can you cite that life in South Africa is like Johann Fourie, the white advertising executive who ferries being in prison? wounded children to the doctor, says, "The time had come to Another member of COSAS says in Witness to Apartheid, stand up and be counted. (I feel) ashamed for having done so "I got rid of the pamphlets and the T-shirts . . . Because what little for so long." What does Fourie mean? Is there any such they can do is just come into your house and search there, thing as an innocent bystander in South Africa? What would and whatever they come across, then you're detained." Is there you do if you were a white South African? DAY TWO

Based on your experience in the apartheid simulation, why do Homework: you think the government instructs the police and army to go Read Student Handout #4: Learning Was Defiance, to such brutal lengths to crush any opposition? by Dumisani Kumalo. Archbishop 'Mu says, "This government does not know how to handle dissent . . . They almost always respond with the iron fist." What evidence can you cite to support Archbishop lbtu's claim? Why does the government not allow dissent? At the end of the film, Archbishop Desmond lhtu says that in South Africa "black lives are dirt cheap. Our people are killed as if you're swatting a fly." What evidence does Witness to Apartheid provide to support Archbishop 'lltu's chilling conclusion? Why is the film called Witness to Apartheid? If you witness some particular injustice being committed, what kind of responsibility does this give you? Before Witness to Apartheid was produced, the story of detentions of children and systematic torture of detainees was barely covered in the U.S. media. In fact, still today it is rarely mentioned. Filmmaker Sharon Sopher tells audiences that she had no more contacts in South Africa than do the correspondents for U.S. television networks based there. Why hasn't the story of widespread torture in South Africa been given more prominent treatment by the mainstream media in the U.S.? Could this be considered censorship? DAY THREE: ROLE PLAY NEW BREED OF CHILDREN"

BioalslObJectlves: Materials Needed: 1. Students will learn about the 1. Student Handout #5: South African Student conditions black South African students 2. Student Handout #6: Challenging "Gutter Education'' face in their schooling and why they are so committed to changing their education and society. 2. Students will learn to apply their understanding to concrete problems as , they grapple with the difficult choices facing South African students. 3. Students will gain experience in group decision-making and consider the implications of different actions.

Procedure: 1. As an introduction to this lesson review Learning Was What makes you think that you can do anything to change Defiance and re-play the section in Witness to Apartheid which the system in South Africa? Aren't you a little overwhelmed? includes the COSAS students. One of these young people A friend of yours was shot yesterday on the way home from declares that for freedom he is "prepared to sacrifice even my life. school, another was beaten and, like Johnny in Witness to I am prepared to do whatever I can." This lesson will explore Apartheid, can hardly speak. Does that give you second what leads people in South Africa to such a deep commitment. thoughts about continuing your work to change the system? 2. Seat students in a circle so they are able to talk with one Your parents are afraid you too will be killed. If your parents another more easily. Explain to students that they are going to asked you to stop your political activities and just go to school experience a little of what it is like to be students in the black and not complain, what would you tell them? townships of South Africa. What's wrong with soldiers in the classroom? Don't they 3. Distribute to the class Student Handout #5: Soutli African guarantee that your education will not be disrupted? Student. Suppose the government promised to improve the quality of 4. Ask students to read the role carefully. Have them mark education, would that satisfy you? parts they think are especially important to remember and to note any questions they might have. With COSAS banned, all of your student meetings are illegal. You could be arrested - even tortured - for just getting 5. When students have completed the reading, remind them together to talk. Is it really worth it? Why? Where will you that for the rest of the role play each of them is to imagine being meet? the person described in the role sheet. To work them into their roles, you should "interview" them about what is going on in Many other questions are possible. The goal here is simply their lives. Select students at random to answer a number of to get students to begin identifying with their role by reflecting questions, such as: upon the daily conditions of their life. Another option is to have students write their answers to Tell us about your home life. What bothers you most about a few of these questions. Sometimes this helps students study the your living situation? role a little more carefully. What does your education prepare you for? How does that 6. Distribute Student Handout #6: Challenging "Gutter make you feel? Education.'' Read the problems aloud with students and clarify How do you feel about your education, in fact your whole life, any questions they might raise. being determined by the color of your skin? 7. There are at least three different ways to handle this What complaints do you have about your teachers and the assignment, depending on the comfort and ease with which quality of instruction? Who or what do you blame? Would the class handles group discussions. better teachers make a difference? What have you done about these complaints? What difficulties do you face in organizing? How do you express your opinions if demonstrations are illegal? DAY THREE

Option #1: Homework: Have the class become a secret meeting of black students Writing assignment: Have students write a report on their in the school described in the Handout. Wk about different deliberations. The report should explain the reasoning behind methods they might use to discuss and decide the issues raised each of the decisions reached and also discuss some of the in the Handout. Students might choose a chairperson to call on potential problems with the decision. other students and move the discussion along. Alternatively, there Or: Have students write an "interior monologue" from the might be a rotating chairperson for each of the six issues. Still point of view of the student they portrayed: what fears and another possibility is to have no chairperson, but for each expectations are going on in the mind of this young South student who speaks to call on the next speaker who calls on African? Is he or she optimistic? What difficulties and challenges the following speaker, and so on. still await this student and other COSAS members? As the teacher you have no role other than to watch and take notes on different lines of argument that are raised. This is my favored option, because students not only become familiar with the difficult issues faced by the "new breed of children" in South Africa, but they also experience the problems - and excitement - of collective decision-making. However, students may have a number of problems making decisions as a group, and this can lead to conflicts which are not easily resolved. Option #2: Ask students to complete the assignment in small groups. After each group is finished reconvene the large group and compare answers and rationales. Option #3: Allow students to work individually on the questions and then lead a group discussion of all six problems. Whichever method you choose, remind students that they need to approach each problem from the perspective of the South African students described in Handout #5. DAY FOURZ ROLE PLAY: x NEW BREED OF CHILDREN9'(completion)

1. After students have completed their discussions of the six In attempting to secure concessions from the government, problems raised in Student Handout #6: Challenging "Gutter the school boycott has been a favored tactic of the student Education," review their decisions and compare them with the movement, though some people have grown critical of these choices actually being made by South African students. Use the stayaways because students are often cut off from each other following information as a guide. for long periods of time. Others wony about a generation of illiterates growing up.

A. What are the demands you plan to make of the C. What action will students in your school take to overturn Department of Education and Training (DET), the agency Jacob Molefe's firing? that oversees black education in South Africa? Do you have additional demands which might go beyond what the DET Once a progressive teacher is sacked, his or her rehiring would likely be able to deal with? automatically becomes one of the students' demands. Students have also joined alliances with progressive teachers' unions in One of the most important demands students have put South Africa to demand that teachers be rehired. forward has been for democratically elected Student Representative Councils. The government has steadfastly refused D. Should you approach COSATU to ask for help? What kind this demand and has instead offered schemes of representation of help do you think this organization could offer? Even though which give no real democratic voice to students. Black students the unions in COSATU might be sympathetic to your struggle, have criticized the quality of instruction in their schools and how will you explain to them why they should go out of their continue to demand qualified teachers. According to one student way to support you? From what other kinds of groups or publication, 78 out of 100 teachers in black schools are organizations could you look for support? unqualified. Students have also called for an end to corporal punishment and sexual harassment. Before it was banned, COSAS cooperated with the trade In December of 1985, students' organizations joined with a union movement and they supported each other's demands. In number of progressive parent and teacher groups to found the November 1984 COSAS helped initiate a general strike in the National Education Crisis Committee (NECC). This national lkansvaal region of South Africa (including Johannesburg) in organization has subsequently led the fight for the development which an estimated 650,000 workers struck for two days. Up to of a "people's education" in the schools that "eliminates capitalist that time, this was the largest general strike that had been staged norms of competition, individualism and stunted intellectual in the history of South Africa. Students and workers have development, and . . . encourages collective input and active subsequently worked together on numerous occasions, notably participation by all." As part of this people's education students in organizing for the June 16, 1986 commemoration of the tenth demand that they be taught from works of history and literature anniversary of the Soweto uprising. For example, COSATU that equip them to understand more clearly the roots of their prepared a pamphlet written in a popular style which explained liberation struggle. to workers the students' demands and the goals of people's Students recognize that, ultimately, gutter education simply education. prepares them for life in the gutter and that their demands COSATU unions have a strong stake in the student struggles implicitly go well beyond edcational reform. Students are for a number of reasons. First, participation in the democratic demanding a fully democratic society with opportunities for student organizations is important experience that is built upon meaningful work and social interaction. Consequently, more and when those students become workers. All the struggles put the more students see themselves as activists in the broader struggle apartheid regime under increasing pressure and weaken its ability to overthrow the system of apartheid and institutionalized to repress easily or buy off isolated insurgencies. On a personal inequality. level, workers are also parents and care about their children's education. Each fight against the apartheid authorities is also a learning experience which, win or lose, better equips the B. What, if anything, will you threaten to do if your demands participants and the movement as a whole to learn what works are not met? Can you make any changes on your own without and what doesn't, and what is ultimately necessary to achieve the government's consent? liberation.

Some of the students' demands depend on government E. How will you respond to this new decree (to carry ID action, but students have taken other grievances into their own cards)? hands. All over South Africa, people's education and "awareness days" have been initiated by students themselves, sometimes with Students in Soweto and in many other black townships had the cooperation of supportive teachers. In these sessions, bonfires and burned cards. In other areas, sympathetic principals students study an alternative view of history and literature, sing never issued them. By fall of 1986, it appeared that the freedom songs and hear presentations from other students about authorities responded to widespread resistance simply by ignoring political activities in other schools. At times, these awareness their own decrees. In some areas, particularly Soweto and the sessions have gone on even in schools occupied by the South Eastern Cape, the government has shut down black schools African army. known for their active resistance. DAY FOUR

F. What will you do if troops come on to school grounds? HOMEWORK: This question, and perhaps some of the others, will Writing assignment: Following the discussion, ask students confront your students with issues of violence and nonviolence to stay in their roles as South African students. Have them write as viable methods of change. In South Africa, as Witness to letters to North American students explaining why they are so Apartheid demonstrates, many students believe that violence determined; what it is they are trying to achieve that is so is a legitimate tactic. This is a judgment not hastily reached, but important that they are willing to risk their lives; is there anything born out of a fifty-year nonviolent struggle which, at each step, they want North American students to do that could support the has met with increased repression (see the film Generations of struggle for freedom in South Africa? Encourage students to use Resistance for a history of apartheid). Questions of life and death lots of examples in their letters. are heavy fare for classroom discussion and deserve detailed You may want students to read their letters as a way of consideration (see Lesson #lo in Strangers in Their stimulating further discussion. It's important that the horrors Own Country). of apartheid not be taught in a way that lulls students into complacency about injustices in our society - inequality and racism are features still deeply embedded in the structure of our own country. The following are some intentionally leading questions which might provoke some reflection about the character and quality of our students' schooling: Which of the goals fought for by South African students might also be appropriate here? What kind of say-so do students here have in determining policies about cumculum, quality of instruction, school discipline, etc. (Do school authorities here ever set up pretend- democracies to satisfy students' desires for input as they do in South Africa?) Is the cumculum biased in favor of certain ethnic groups or social classes? How do school facilities and the quality of instruction differ among rich and poor and between racial and ethnic groups? Does unfair punishment or sexual harassment exist? Is our schooling shaped by the needs of an unequal society for a particular kind of workforce as in South Africa? Is there fulfilling work available for all school graduates? Students' answers to these questions might indicate more similarities between students' conditions in South Africa and this society than might at first be apparent. DAY FIVE: SOUTH AFRICA LEITER WRITING

Ooais10bJectives: Materials Needed: 1. Students will reflect on their 1. List of names of South African students who have been detained provided by the: responsibility to work for justice in South Detainees' Parents Support Committee Africa. PO. Box 39431 2. Students will identify questions and Bramley 2018 understandings they've developed through Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA the course of the week's study on South Africa. 3. Students will take one more step toward identifying with South Africans as people.

Procedure: 1. Remind students that the film they watched earlier was 3. Tell students that they will now have an opportunity to called Witness to Apartheid and that through the week's contact by letter an actual student in South Africa. This is their activities they have become "witnesses" to apartheid. Ask: chance to ask questions, offer support or share their experiences What responsibility does this give us to act on behalf of with a person directly involved in the South African struggle. those fighting for human rights and justice in South Africa? It may be useful for students to imagine that they have actually If you heard someone calling insistently for help outside your received the letter they wrote as a South African to a North house, would it be appropriate to do nothing? American student This mrght spark writing ideas. Students What might be some ways that we here, even right at this may also wish to refer back to the assignment they completed school, could make a difference? As appropriate, share with for homework on Day one of to Apartheid students some of the things that other young people are doing curriculum. around the country: 4. Before beginning the letter writing, have students list Students in Oregon put on a play about apartheid to educate ideas or questions they would like to bring up with their the community. correspondents. You may wish to have students share some Students in New York produced posters to be displayed at of these with each other. different schools. 5. Assign students a name from the list provided by the Students in Maryland researched where the gold in their class Detainees' Parents Support Committee (DPSC) in the Appendix rings comes from to make sure they are not supporting South (insert). Letters should be addressed c/o the DPSC. African mining companies. College students a11 around the country have been at the Remarks: forefront of the movement to pressure for full U.S. corporate A number of my students at Jefferson High School in disinvestment from South Africa. Portland, Oregon have been writing to students in a so-called colored high school outside of , South Africa. Some High school students in Brookline, Massachusetts successfully get replies, some don't Your students should understand that pushed a resolution through their town council calling for there are a variety of factors making it difficult to get responses divestment of local funds from corporations doing business in from South Africa: it's possible that South African students will South Africa. not receive the letters for a number of reasons; they may fear that Toronto students organized a citywide conference to educate a response could target them or their families for detention or teachers and students about apartheid and the South African surveillance; work, school, family or political responsibilities may struggle for democracy. not leave time for corresponding with people so far away; for some, even the cost of an envelope and stamp may be prohibitive. Tell students that one way to make a small difference might Those students of mine who do receive replies are thrilled, be to communicate directly with people in South Africa to offer and we share these as a class so all can benefit. Getting a letter encouragement or just the sense that people around the world from South Africa makes the entire unit less abstract - the are watching and care. people students have been studying finally become real. 2. Ask for volunteers to read the letters they wrote as the On a practical note, as of April 1987, a l/'-ounce airmail concluding activity in the COSAS role play. letter to South Africa costs 44 cents. Addltlonal Readlng Suggestlons Readlng Suggestions Addltlonal Fllm Suggestlons: for Studenk: for Taachon: South Africa Belongs to Us (Producer: Luli Callinicos, Gold and Workers: A Pam Christie I SACHED, The Right to Gerhard Schmidt, 35 minutes). This People's History of South Africa (vol. I.), Learn: The Struggle for Education in moving portrait of five black women from Ravan Press, Johannesburg 1985. South Africa, SACHEDIRAVAN Press, different walks of life features commentary (Distributed in the U.S. by Ohio Univ. Johannesburg, 1985. A history and critique by Winnie Mandela. It is ideal for Press, Athens, Ohio.) A fine and readable of education in South Africa. This book understanding what apartheid is, how it account of the importance of gold in the would be especially useful teacher affects all aspects of daily life, and the social and economic development of South background for the COSAS role play in singular burden it imposes on women. Africa. Lots of material could be used quite this curriculum guide. Generations of Resistance (Producer: Peter successfully with high school students. Kevin Danaher, In Whose Interest? A Guide Davis, United Nations, 50 minutes). An Julie Frederikse, South Africa: A Different to U.S. I South African Relations, Institute unparalleled history of the evolution of Kind of War, James Currey, 1986. for Policy Studies, Washington, D.C., 1984. apartheid and the century-long struggle of Drawings, interviews, photographs, news Excellent overview of South African black resistance to white rule, this film articles are woven together to give a sense conflict. Focuses especially on U.S. provides the historical context necessary for the character of the struggle in South Involvement in South Africa. Includes the for understanding the roots of today's Africa. most detailed bibliography available on conflict International Defense and Aid for Southern South Africa. Woza Albert! (David Thompson, BBC, Africa, Apartheid: The Facts, IDAF, William Finnegan, Crossing The Line: 55 minutes). This remarkable film London, 1983. An excellent overview of A Year in the Land of Apartheid, Harper intenveaves scenes from the international South Africa's apartheid system. The book and Row, New York, 1986. An engaging hit black South African play with actual is full of charts and graphs that could be and insightful account of a young visits by the actors to people, places and reproduced for classroom use. (IDAF also American teaching in a so-called coloured events from which their work derived. The publishes Namibia: The Facts.) township in Cape Town, South Africa. result is an unforgettable experience of what it is like to be black in South Africa International Defense and Aid for Southern Lawyers Committee For Human Rights, War Africa, This is Apartheid, A Pictorial Against the Children, New York, 1986. today. Excellent for senior drama and Introduction, IDAF, London, 1978. A short A damning overview of the courses. but engaging pamphlet illustrated with government's treatment of children in the All these and other titles on the region are photographs. recent struggles. Parts of this could be used available from: Beata Lipman, We Make Freedom - with students. The Southern Africa Media Center Women in South Africa, Pandora Press, Joseph Lelyveld, Move Your Shadow: South California Newsreel London and Boston, 1984. Lipman has Africa, Black and White, Random House, 630 Natoma Street interviewed women engaged in a variety of 1986. Former New York Times San Francisco, CA 94103 activities in South Africa. The selections correspondent writes of his impressions of (415) 621-6196. are short and could easily be used with the country and the current crisis. Sun City (Song by Little Steven Van Zandt, students. Ann Seidman, Roots of Crisis in Southern video by United Artists Against Apartheid, Beverly Naidoo, Journey to Jo'burg: A South Africa, Africa World Press, 'Ikenton, N.J., 51 minutes). This is a music video based African Story, Lipincott, New York, 1985. 1985. Just what the title says. Seidman has on the popular anti-apartheid song, Sun A moving story which captures how family spend years living in Southern Africa as a City. The video includes performances by life is affected by apartheid. Highly teacher and researcher. Lots of useful Miles Davis, Bruce Springsteen, Reuben recommended for students. tables and data boxes Blades, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr and others. Judy Seidman, Ba Ye Zwa: The People Live, Tho good sources of books are: This is a big hit with students and the South End Press, Boston, 1978. A accompanying Making of Sun City video Africa World Press explores the reasons musicians chose to collection of poetry, newspaper clippings, PO. Box 1892 illustrations, etc., makes for provocative take a stand against apartheid. A short 'kenton, NJ 08607 curriculum guide is also available from: student reading. International Defense and Aid Fund The Africa Fund (Ravan Press also publishes several excellent PO. Box 17 198 Broadway collections of short stories, many of which Cambridge, MA 02138 New York, NY 10036 could be used with students.)

This "Teaching Guide" offers a week-long introduction to apartheid. But a week can give only the barest hint of the issues tearing South Africa apart. For a more comprehensive examination of this complicated and important struggle, teachers are urged to acquire: William Bigelow, Strangers in Their Own County: A Cuniculum Guide on South Africa, Africa World Press, ?Lenton, NJ, 1985. $12.95 Stan& alone as the only commmially pubbhed teaching unit on South Afiica with inkgngnty,breadth and depth. - Marylee Croft, Cumculum Specialist, Michigan State University Available for $12.95 from: The Southern Africa Media Center, California Newsreel, 630 Natoma Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 PRIVILEGED MINORITY

You have been given a number of privileges which the other students in the class do not have:

You will not be forced to squeeze into the small areas like the rest of the class. You may wander the room freely. You will receive two packets of "m & m" candies. One will be for your own enjoyment. Feel free to go ahead and eat them. You will use the "m & m"s from the second packet to hire members of the unprivileged majority to work for you. Obviously you will receive many more "m & m" candies than the other students.

You are privileged. You look down on the unprivileged and call them "kaffirsl' They must call you "boss" if they want to work for you.

As mentioned, your responsibility is to make other people (the less privileged) work for you. Use "m & m" candies from the second packet to pay out for wages. Think up a number of jobs which need to get done (books moved from one part of the room to another, the floor swept, desks wiped clean or moved, enforcing the law that other "kaffirs" don't step out of their separate areas, etc.) You may want to talk with the other privileged students before deciding on the jobs to be done and what you'll pay. Don't pay too much for a job. You don't want to spoil them!

Make sure that the unprivileged students don't step outside the areas they are confined to unless it is to work for you. When the job is over, they should return to their areas. Remember, the unprivileged must treat you with respect at all times.

Should any of the unprivileged students fail to obey orders, leave their designated area, protest their treatment or not show you enough respect, you may punish them by sending them to prison. Designate one or more of you, or even some of the unprivileged students, as police in order to watch out for troublemakers. The teacher has marked off a part of the room for the prison. Student Handout #2

SOUTH AFRICA: THE BANTUSTANS

- -.. VENDA There is very little good farm land in the bantustans. For example, only 15% of the Ciskei is arable. 89% of Ciskei children suffer from malnutrition.

According to The Economist, 50,000 children die every year from the effects of malnutrition, while South Africa exports over $1 billion worth of food.

I -* C' None of the bantustans _.--._a has significant mineral resources. Only 3% of practicing \--- doctors in South Africa are in the bantustans. Infant mortality among rural blacks is 282 per 1000. Among whites, 12 per 1000.

According to the South African Council of Churches, 3.5 million blacks have been forcibly removed from "white" South Africa to the bantustans since 1960. Student Handout #3

HUMAN RIGHTS FACT SHEET

"Because I'm black I've got to suffer, just because of my skin.'' - Black Student, Witness to Apartheid

A. How the System Works All people are classified by the government by race. The four racial categories are white, African (black), colored and Indian. A person does not determine his or her own race; the government decides.

The Group Areas Act declares that South Africa is According to the South African Council of to be separated into white, African, colored and Churches, between 1960 and 1985 an estimated Indian areas. Individuals from each group are legally 3.5 million black South Africans were forced to allowed to live only in areas determined by the move to barren tribal reserves, called bantustans government. No black, Indian or colored may reside or "homelands." Families are frequently broken up legally in a "white" area without permission. 87% of with the men working in factories located in areas the country's land, including that with most of the designated "white!' By law, 97% of black South resources, minerals and best farm land, is reserved African mineworkers must be migrant laborers - for whites only. they are prohibited from bringing their families Those people who are living in white areas illegally with them. are subject to arrest and imprisonment. Although Blacks have no vote in South Africa. The white- blacks are no longer required by law to cam controlled government decides who may live passbooks, they still must have official permission where, how much money will be spent on schools, to live in the black townships surrounding the cities. hospitals, parks, etc. There is a severe shortage of housing for blacks. But blacks without housing may be arrested for vagrancy. Decisions to build or not to build new housing are made by the government. Student Handout #3

Bm Schooling Dm Political Repression: Preserving the Apartheid System All public schools in South Africa are strictly segregated. No black child in South Africa may Because most people in South Africa suffer legally sit in a classroom with a white child. from apartheid, many are involved in trying to change it. The minority that benefits from apartheid uses The government spends over seven times as much whatever means it can to secure submission and to educate a white child as it spends to educate a preserve the system: black child. The two major liberation organizations, the African On average, there is one teacher in each white National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress, South African school for every 18 students. In are outlawed, as are many other student and black schools the ratio is one teacher for 43 community organizations. students. No outdoor political meetings may be held, Many black schools in South Africa are occupied including many funerals. In fact, almost all forms of by heavily armed government troops. Soldiers with protest are outlawed. The press is even barred from automatic rifles often sit and observe inside the reporting any acts of resistance unless the classrooms. No white schools are occupied. Many government first gives permission. black schools have been closed by the government. It is against the law for anyone to urge foreign companies to stop investing in South Africa. C. Health Care The government may arrest anyone at anytime for If you are white in South Africa, you can expect any reason and keep them for any length of time. No to live 72.3 years. Africans can expect to live 58.9 one need be notified of an individual's arrest. Under years, unless they live in the rural areas where life the recent State of Emergency (announced June 12, expectancy is much lower. Coloreds live an average 1986) more than 30,000 people have been arrested 56.1 years, and Indians, 63.9 years. as of April 1987; 9000 of these children under 18. An average of 136 black children die every day from According to independent reports, torture is the effects of malnutrition. (South Africa is one of widespread and systematic in South African prisons. the top seven food exporting nations in the world. Many of those tortured are children. A recent survey Every year, the country exports over $1 billion worth by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights found of agricultural products including grain, beef, that 83% of all detainees held by South African vegetables and fruit.) The major cause of death for government authorities had been physically abused. black children in South Africa is disease brought on In the last two years, hundreds of blacks have been by malnutrition; for white children the major cause killed by the South African security forces - many of death is swimming pool accidents. of these people were children. Under the regulations Government hospitals, even ambulances, are of the State of Emergency, policemen and soldiers classified by race. who beat and even kill people are immune from prosecution. LEARNING WAS DEFIANCE, by Dumisani Kumalo I began school in Evaton, a village twenty miles in that short time. The teacher in my school was paid south of Johannesburg. When I went to school, white $20 a month to teach 120 kids per day (under rotten education was compulsory and virtually free-and still conditions). Raching was something done out of love. is today. Yet, I, like other black students, had to pay It wasn't a career: it was a calling. school fees to the government. If your parents could When I started school in 1953, Africans could afford the fees you could get an education. But, if be taught in English. But the following year, they your parents could afford the fees but not the uniform, changed the law and Bantu Education was introduced. you couldn't get an education. If your parents could Now black children could be taught just enough to afford a uniform and school fees but no books, you become the "better tool of the white man." This meant still couldn't get an education. that we had to be taught in our "mother tongue." In And then, even if all the fees were paid, you other words, if you were a Zulu, you had to be taught couldn't go to school if you didn't have a "Christian" in Zulu. But the trick was that there were no books in name - meaning a name that whites could Zulu. We had to read a book in English, translate it in pronounce. We would often lead dual lives. At home our heads into Zulu and then write the exams in Zulu. I was Dumisani. At school I became Shadrack. Every But we always wanted to learn. Since the so often, the government inspectors would come and government made it so difficult to get an education, check the school register for Christian names and if we had to prove that we could. Learning became a we had paid our school fees. Those that hadn't paid defiance for us. It was one of the few things they were sent away. couldn't take away. In old Zululand, a man's worth In spite of the fees paid to the government, black was judged by the amount of land he tilled and the education was often left up to the community. In other amount of cattle he had. My father saw all his father's words, the government didn't build schools for black land and cattle taken from him, and so, education was students, so my parents had to help build mine. They seen as something irrevocable. They could take away had to buy the furniture; they had to buy the books, our land, they could lock us up in jail, but they the chalk and help pay the teacher's salary. couldn't take away what's in our head. This was our The school I went to was just four mud walls and strongest motivation for learning. a corrugated iron roof. During the summer the school It wasn't until I was in junior high school that was like an oven because there were only little holes I became more politically aware and, as a result, more for windows. When it rained - or hailed - we rebellious. This was around the time of the Sharpeville couldn't hear each other speak because of the Massacre and I had begun demonstrating with my corrugated iron roof. We had to wear uniforms - father. We started having strikes at school over issues black gym dresses and white shirts for the girls, black as trivial as food. That was just an excuse, of course - pants and white shirts for the boys. But we had no a way to begin to voice our anger. The police would chairs so we had to sit on the ground - the dusty come and beat the hell out of us, but we didn't care. ground. We had nothing. I left home wearing a nice It didn't matter. We could be out there again the pressed white shirt and nice black pants, but I came next day. home dusty and dirty. I remember very clearly one incident that made We had one teacher for a class of 129. All the us go on strike. One thing whites used to do for grades were mixed up together. The teacher - who amusement on Friday nights was to get very drunk had one small piece of blackboard to teach us with - and drive out to the rural areas with rods and hooks. divided us into two shifts, one from 7 to 1 o'clock and Then they would drive past black people riding the next from 1 to 5. Teachers were tough. They bicycles and "hook" them anywhere they could and wanted to make sure we learned as much as we could drive away. One day they hooked the sweetest guy at Student Handout #4 our school. They badly tore up his face and that made The main problem in South Africa, then, is not us strike with anger. that there aren't enough schools. It is the nature of Black education suffers continually from the education itself. That's what we are struggling government indoctrination and oppression and this is against. We don't want the rotten education they are why students in South Africa are very politicized. In feeding us. The fundamental problem is not simply the Englishl'frikaans dictionary, for example the word that black children are given a different education "baas" (the subservient word for master) was defined from whites, but that it is inferior. That's what the as "white man," 'hero" and "clever man." I grew up poison is. It's not that for two school years we didn't being taught the praises of the heroes of Bloodriver - have a classroom and had to sit under the sun in the I mean our heroes. But when I went to school, the summer. It's what they taught us. The indoctrination is teacher told me that the Zulus lost in Bloodriver. the issue. While we are learning to become the "better I was so upset that after school I ran home as fast tool of the white man:' white children are learning as I could. I went to my aunt who was the oldest that we are inferior and potential terrorists. member of my family (or as we put it, she had seen more winters than anyone else among us). "How come you told me there were heroes in Bloodriver, yet the teacher says we lost to the Boers?" I asked in confusion. 'Never say that again:' my aunt replied forcefully. 'We never lost the war; it was About the Author: postponed until we got our own fire sticks." For some Dumisani Kumalo, a South African exile, was formerly projects time after that, I lost interest in history and took director for the American Committee on Africa in New York. This up mathematics. I figured they couldn't change article is reprinted courtesy of The Council on Interracial Books the numbers. for Children.

REPRINTED FROM A SOUTH AFRICAN STUDENT NEWSPAPER Student Handout #5

SOUTH AFRICAN STUDENT You are 16 years old and live in Soweto, a black township near Johannesburg with a population of ToManenberg around two million people. You are a high school URGENT student there. Your family is very poor. Your mother CALL Workers is a domestic. She cares for a white family with two STUDENTS & children in Johannesburg. You see her only once a week on her day off. Your father is unemployed and even though he is experienced in many kinds of factory work, cannot find a job. You are not hopeful about finding a good job after you graduate from MASS MEETING school. In fact, you fear you won't find any kind of job. SHAWco HALL Your school is very run down. Many windows are WYR. broken; the playgrounds are dusty fields; the dirt road - that runs in front of your school has garbage piled - -- I* POLICf high. BRWI IM surf OF ,,acr", Classes in your school are filled to capacity. ulNun Sixty or more students is not uncommon, though the WE MUST ACT NOW!! AWU1 In' cllsls r* 4LlCl pCs[~[ IN *N~N~c,, classrooms are much too small to handle so many people. Some of the teachers in your school care I about giving a good education and try hard. But many are poorly trained and don't really know how to teach. Others are insensitive to students, and lazy and at times even threaten female students with a failing grade if the girls don't agree to sleep with them. This behavior outrages you but the principal won't do anything to stop it. Some of your teachers use corporal punishment who want everyone to believe their version of history. and beat students with sticks. You watched a friend of According to your textbook, South Africa's history yours beaten just because he questioned why a teacher began with the coming of the whites in 1652. The never had you read books by blacks. books say almost nothing about the long history of Of course, schooling in South Africa is strictly Africans in the country before the arrival of the white segregated. No African may attend a government-run settlers. And all the history after that is also told only white school. There are also separate schools for from the point of view of the whites. Even literature Indians and people of mixed race - the so-called classes are taught as if white people were the only "colored" people. These segregated schools are so ones who ever did any writing. You want to read black separate they even have different vacations and writers who talk about freedom and justice like Alex different departments of education which control La Guma, Dennis Brutus, Mtutuzeli Matshoba and them. It's not that you want so badly to go to a white Can Themba. school. What angers you is that you have no say over You've coined a phrase to sum up your feelings any of these educational policies, and that the whites about the schooling you receive. You call it "gutter have resewed a good education for themselves. education." Your school's curriculum, and the curriculum for Because you are so dissatisfied with the all black schools, was written by white South Africans conditions at your school and the quality of your Student Handout #5 education, you feel the need for some kind of elected What did you learn in school today, dear little child organization to represent your views and complaints in of mine? order to win better conditions. For a long time, What did you learn in school today, dear little child students at your school and other black schools in the of mine? country have called for democratically elected Student We learnt that west is always best and white is Councils. Unfortunately, the government refuses to usually right recognize these councils and has suggested a different That rich and poor will always be, and that's what kind of student organization which, in your opinion, makes us free would be more like establishing a kind of student police force. What did you learn in school today, dear little child Black students in South Africa, like yourself, have of mine? not merely complained about the bad conditions, What did you learn in school today, dear little child they've organized to change them. Up until just of mine? recently you had been a member of COSAS, the That education brings opporhmities in this Congress of South African Students. COSAS was a advancing age national organization set up to fight for a "free, But we'll end up working in the factories for a measly dynamic and compulsory education for all" and was weekly wage part of the larger struggle for a nonracial democracy What did you learn in the streets today, dear little in South Africa. child of mine? Your organization was seen as a threat to the What did you learn in the streets today, dear little system by the South African government and was child of mine? outlawed in August of 1985 - cut off in mid-stream We learnt that teargas bums the eyes, we learnt how before COSAS had a chance to develop a strategy. police dogs bite Even though COSAS is now banned, you are still We learnt that batons break our bones, and we're committed to working to change the whole system of learning how to fight apartheid education - and apartheid itself. What good would it be to have a good school in a rotten What did you hear in the news today, dear little child system? Even if school changed, the rest of your life of mine? would still be like slavery: you're told where you can What did you hear in the news today, dear little child and can't live, when you can and can't work, and you of mine? have no vote. When YOU can get work - which is not That agitators stir us up - and lead us astray often these days - you work in the worst conditions But we can think and we can see and we want for the lowest pay. change today. But even though you know there must be change, and that someday there will be change, it is difficult for your fellow students to know exactly what to do. Every day you are faced with difficult choices - choices which are sometimes dangerous. Recently you heard a song which is sung by students in Cape Tbwn that expresses perfectly what you've been thinking and feeling these days. It goes like this: Student Handout #6

CHALLENGING "GUTTER EDUCATION" For most of the past year, students in your school struggle, how will you explain to them why they have been boycotting classes in protest of the South should go out of their way to support you? From African army troops occupying the black townships - what other kinds of groups or organizations might including Soweto, where you live. Now you are back in you look for support? having decided to fight 5. The J)ET and other authorities have and "gutter education" from the inside. You believe accused "outside agitators" of stirring up students at your decision to return to school is not a surrender to various schools, including yours. The government the authorities. Far from it. You are more convinced minister in charge of black education, Mr. Gerrit than ever that the whole system must be scrapped. Viljoen, has announced that from now on, all black Students in your school are holding discussions to students at schools will have to cam, identification decide a number of im~omtissues. just cards. Anyone found on school grounds without an ta~hold these meetings is illegal; participants risk ID card will be subject to arrest. No other racial group being beaten by police and detained. is required to carry these ID cards. How will you 1. What demands do you plan to make of the respond to this new decree? Department of Education aid llaining PET), the 6. The principal has learned of your secret meetings agency that oversees black education in South Africa? and knows how "radical" you students are. He has Do you have additional demands which might go asked the government to send army troops to the beyond what the DET would likely be able to deal school to prevent "disorder" from breaking out. You've with? Remember, you've gone back to school in order seen these troops at a number of other schools in to challenge from within, not because you're more Soweto. They are often stationed right in the willing to tolerate inferior education in an unequal classrooms - with guns at the ready. What will you society. do if troops come on to school grounds? 2. What, if anything, will you threaten to do if your demands are not met? Can you make any of the changes on your own, without the government's agreement? 3. Recently, you've learned that Jacob Molefe, a 'YOU CAN'T popular teacher at school and someone sympathetic to student concerns, has been fired by the principal. What action will students in your school take to US' overturn his firing? SILENCE 4. It has been suggested that you approach COSAS IS COSATU, the black union confederation with over 600,000 members, to ask for support in getting your BANNED - demands met by the DET. COSATU is a very activist BUT THE and political organization and is sympathetic with the kinds of concerns you have. Should you approach STUDENTS' COSATU to ask for help? What kind of help do you STRUGGLE think this organization could offer? Even though the GOES ON unions in COSATU might be sympathetic to your 1 The Southern Africa Media Center California Newsreel, 630 Natoma Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, (415) 621-6196